In automotive styling, it is desirable to mount a side view mirror on a vehicle door's outer skin and minimize the mirror footprint to provide sleek stylization of the side view mirror as attached to the door panel. Historically, as the mirror footprint is minimized, it becomes more difficult to provide enough door structure to prevent the mirror from shaking and vibrating in use. This results in a bulky mirror-mounting structure being necessary to properly secure a mirror assembly to a door skin. A bulky mirror-mounting structure is more likely to cause vibrations during vehicle travel as well as increase aerodynamic drag on the mirror assembly.
Thus, there is a desire to provide a mounting system for a side view mirror on a door panel to fully support the mirror under abusive loading, where the mirror assembly has a minimized mounting footprint with sufficient loading performance, wherein the mirror-mounting assembly also exhibits reduced vibration in use.